If the Celtics were able to deal KG and Paul for expiring contracts by the trade deadline OR this offseason, would that then give them enough cap space to go after two max free agents this summer? (Dwight and Josh Smith, think DH/Smith/Rondo trio)

If the Celtics were able to deal KG and Paul for expiring contracts by the trade deadline OR this offseason, would that then give them enough cap space to go after two max free agents this summer? (Dwight and Josh Smith, think DH/Smith/Rondo trio)

If the Celtics were able to deal KG and Paul for expiring contracts by the trade deadline OR this offseason, would that then give them enough cap space to go after two max free agents this summer? (Dwight and Josh Smith, think DH/Smith/Rondo trio)

Look at it this way. There is the cap and there is the luxery tax threshhold. At this point, we are well over the cap. We'd need to deal a number of contracts just to get to the point where we'd have zero cap space (cuzz right now we have negative space).

The cap will probably rise a little bit, in my opinion, but not by enough for two max players -- you'd have to have almost all your roster expire for that to work out. Fitting one max in, especially someone coming off a rookie deal who's a restricted free agent, on the other hand, would be possible if Pierce and KG's contracts were jettisoned.

Still, I don't think Danny's interested in trading Pierce and KG merely for cap space next year. A mixture of young players and expirings, which would create roster flexibility, might be interesting to him, but he signed too many players to 3-4 year deals in the $5-9 million range last offseason to be counting on being able to unload enough of them.